Here we are in mid-summer and many of you are traveling or enjoying time with your families. This July eNewsletter reports many important issues and activities, some of which affect the future of the profession of anthropology. NAPA leaders have been busy over the past months developing an ethics policy for the NAPA employment web page and a NAPA position statement on the insertion of
1971 ethics statements about secret research into the 1998 AAA Ethics Statement. The Position Statement, the process, and what you can do as a member is discussed below. In this newsletter we welcome our newly elected Governing Council members and announce a new NAPA Bulletin. You will also find information about AAA newsletter opportunities, and the deadlines for submission of upcoming conference sessions and awards.
Enjoy your summer. Dennis Wiedman, NAPA President
Return to 1971 Ethics. By Dennis Wiedman, NAPA President. Dennis.Wiedman@fiu.edu
A motion now before the AAA Executive Board may have a major harmful impact on practicing anthropologists. At the General Business meeting in November, AAA members concerned about anthropologists’ involvement with the military made the motion which the Executive Board now needs to respond to. This motion calls for the reinstatement of phrases from the 1971 AAA Ethics Statement prohibiting “secret research” into the current ethics statement. Here is an example of the kind of phrases that NAPA finds problematic:“In accordance with the Association’s general position on clandestine and secret research, no reports should be provided to sponsors that are not also available to the general public and, where practicable, to the population studied.”
NAPA, with its mission to support practicing and professional anthropologists, considers the addition of the 1971 secrecy language to be outdated and antithetical to a publicly engaged practice of anthropology and the working world of most anthropologists employed outside of academic teaching departments.
A month ago, when the AAA Ethics Committee was considering this motion, NAPA distributed a position statement that strongly objected to the motion and to related efforts to erode the revised 1998 ethics statement. Since that time, the AAA Ethics Committee forwarded their report to the AAA Executive Board. AAA President Setha Low has now appointed a subcommittee of the Executive Board to consider the report. Their decision is expected by August 15th. The current AAA Code of Ethics can be viewed at: http://www.aaanet.org/issues/policy-advocacy/Code-of-Ethics.cfm
(Return to 1971 Ethics – Continued)
NAPA’s position is that the proposed additions restoring the 1971 anti-secrecy clauses do not reflect the wide array of careers and occupations in which anthropologists have been employed for the past three and a half decades. Many Anthropologists have devoted their careers to working for companies, government agencies, tribal governments, non-profits organizations and even university administrations where the knowledge they generated using their anthropological skills was used to pursue the mission and goals of the organizations. Much of this information was requested and used by decision makers, policy makers and product developers in the everyday operation of their organizations.
Our ethical standards must reflect the new ways that anthropologists work. Who gets to see what and when and in what format is part of every single conversation surrounding research and service. In this globalized world there is now an expectation to honor the need for privacy; protection, or in some cases privileged access to information is given to some and not to others.
If passed as policy, the return to 1971 notions of secret research jeopardizes the future of anthropology as a profession and the AAA as a professional association. These additions are very problematic to the work of professional, applied and practicing anthropologists who are now the majority of anthropologists with advanced degrees. The hundreds of Ph.D. and MA graduates each year who will not seek or attain jobs in academia will be penalized. These disenfranchised anthropologists will find other professional organizations to associate with, as many have already done.
This is not just an “us” vs. “them” issue within the discipline – the ethical conduct of research by all anthropologists calls for a thoughtful consideration of the individual circumstances that dictate how our findings are circulated. We need to prevent an absolutist dictate that provides no flexibility for us to ensure that we benefit the people with whom we work, those who sponsor our work, and the general pool of knowledge about human behavior to which we all aim to contribute.
We recommend that members attend the AAA Business Meeting in San Francisco in great numbers to address this issue and ensure that the opinions and voices of practicing anthropologists are heard.
New NAPA Policy on Employment Web Page Ethics
By Dennis Wiednman, NAPA President. Dennis.Wiedman@fiu.edu
After many months of discussion and careful wording, the NAPA Governing Council unanimously voted to add the following policy to the NAPA Employment web page. As reported in an earlier eNewsletter, the AAA President telephoned in February asking us to take down the HTS employment advertisement. We considered many alternatives, even having a procedure where new postings would be screened by the NAPA Organizational Relations Committee. Instead, the new policy places the responsibility on the job seeker to consider the ethics of employment.
This policy would be the second paragraph in the “Job Seeker” section of the NAPA employment web page at: http://www.practicinganthropology.org/employment/.
(New NAPA Policy on Employment Web Page Ethics – Continued) The new policy and web page text reads:
NAPA welcomes the full range of employers of anthropologists to list employment opportunities. NAPA does not evaluate the suitability or ethics of the jobs listed. It is the responsibility of the individual job seeker to evaluate the ethical compatibility of the employment position for which they apply in order that they can perform their job responsibilities while conforming to the AAA and NAPA Ethics Statements. For more information see the AAA Code of Ethics at: http://www.aaanet.org/issues/policy-advocacy/Code-of-Ethics.cfm,
and the NAPA Ethical Guidelines at http://www.practicinganthropology.org/inside/?section=resources_ethical_guidelines
NAPA elects four New Members of the Governing Council
By Mary Butler, Chair of the NAPA Nominations Committee. maryobutler@comcast.net
NAPA is pleased to announce the results of the 2008 election for membership on the NAPA Governing
Council. Those elected are:
Tim Wallace (President-elect) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at North Carolina State University and has served on the NAPA Governing Council as co-editor of the NAPA Bulletin Series from 2003-2007. His work on the anthropology of tourism, heritage conservation and community- based tourism has resulted in many publications, including NAPA Bulletin 23, Tourism and Anthropology: Linking Theory and Practice, 2005. In addition to Tim’s work with NAPA, he currently serves as editor of the SfAA Newsletter.
John Massad (Treasurer) is a Senior Research Associate and Project Director at LTG Associates. He has extensive experience maintaining multiple project budgets and ensuring accountability to clients in the public and private sector. John’s anthropological interests include applied anthropology, program evaluation and organizational culture.
Sabrina Scott (Member-at-Large) has worked as Director of Innovation Focus, a small business, and as a Process Evaluator and Community Specialist for the Duvall County (Florida) Health Department. Sabrina also serves on NAPA’s Organizational Relations Committee and served as elected Student Representative on the NAPA Governing Council from 1994-1996.
Kalfani Ture (Student Representative) is currently a student at American University where he serves as President of the College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Student Government. He was co-chair of
the 2nd Annual Interrogating Diversity Conference at American University. Kalfani’s interests are urban anthropology, development anthropology, and the politics of identity as they relate to the intersections of race, class and gender.
NAPA Bulletin. Satish Kedia and David Himmelgreen. Co-Editors, NAPA Bulletin. skkedia@memphis.edu
By now, members should have received the NAPA Bulletin 29, “Careers in Applied Anthropology: Advice from Practitioners and Academics.” The Bulletin is also available online via AnthroSource. Issue editor Carla Guerrón-Montero has brought together an impressive collection of academics and practitioners who offer specific advice to students and aspiring practitioners on the benefits and challenges of careers in applied anthropology, both nationally and internationally. The volume contains
14 chapters that offer practical, step-by-step advice on diverse topics such as how to practice anthropology with an M.A. degree, beginning or growing a career in national and international consultancy, developing a small consulting business, the benefits and pitfalls of executive leadership, combining careers in applied anthropology and the academy, field school training, collaborative research and public engagement, and employing applied anthropology in non-anthropological settings. Volume contributors also stress the advantages of obtaining training in the discipline of applied anthropology and of the many opportunities available to utilize anthropology in the real world.
NAPA’s Monthly Column in Anthropology News (AN) By Christine Miller, NAPA Secretary. cmiller@scad.edu
Please contact Chris Miller (NAPA Secretary) if you are interested in submitting a 750 word article for NAPA‘s monthly column in Anthropology News (AN). Articles should raise awareness of the role of practice in industry, non-profit and government agengies and highlight issues faced by practicing anthropologists.
NAPA Sesssions at SfAA: Submission Deadline is October 15, 2008
By Kate Gillogly, NAPA Progam Chair. kgillogl@csu.edu
This year’s SfAAs are in Santa Fe, NM. Meetings at this location are very popular and the SfAA expects many submissions this year and they are encouraging submission of your proposed paper or poster well before the October 15th deadline. This year’s theme is “Global Challenge, Local Action: Ethical Engagements, Policy, and Practice.” The SfAA notes that the Program Chair, Jeanne Simonelli, has developed an exciting program theme and she plans to include a variety of special
attractions, ranging from documentary movies to plenaries on controversial topics (such as the
‘anthropology of security/military‘). We want NAPA members to be a part of this.
NAPA meets in conjunction with the Society for Applied Anthropology every other year. By providing a significant number of sessions, NAPA demonstrates our commitment to working with SfAA and maintaining open dialogue among all the different types of practitioners.
We encourage you to submit sessions and posters to the SfAA and encourage friends and colleagues to do so. The SfAA meetings are a comfortable size, a great place for exploring ethnographic data and trying out new ideas. And when you send in a paper or poster proposal on the SfAA Meetings web site, you have a chance to select NAPA as a sponsoring organization – please do so! NAPA members consistently make a big contribution to the SfAAs, but this contribution isn’t often recognized. Let’s show a significant NAPA presence in 2009!
NAPA Program Coordinator Needed.
By Kate Gillogly kgillogl@csu.edu
NAPA will need a new program coordinator starting in November 2008. This is also known as the
“Section Editor” in AAA terminology. This is a fun and exciting job. The Program Coordinator has
an important role in putting together the public face of NAPA at the annual AAA and SfAA meetings – this is what other anthropologists see of practitioners. It’s a fun way to get involved in the governance of your professional organization through your section at a time when the AAA is changing to accept practitioners.
The Program Coordinator requires attending the NAPA meetings at the AAAs and the SfAAs, which are interesting; and two periods of more intense work in April and May (for the AAA meetings) and in September and October for the SfAAs.
I’ve really enjoyed my time as Program Coordinator. I have met lots of new people, gotten a much better sense of the range of things we all do as practitioners, and learned a lot about how the AAA is run. However, I cannot continue this work as I have other obligations in the coming year. I think that my work as Program Coordinator was instrumental in my getting a tenure track position. I can’t tell you how impressed potential employers were with the fact that I have done service to my profession on a national level.
We need to have a new Program Coordinator in place for the November 2008 AAA meetings, where there is a Section Editors’ meeting that will help you see how sections review and rank proposed sessions.
Give it a try! It’s a great way to learn how to make your organization fulfill your needs as a practitioner and to give back to your fellow practitioners.
AAA Anthropology News Call for Proposals – US Presidential Election Series. By AN Editor Dinah Winnick. dwinnick@aaanet.org
Anthropology News is seeking contributions for a Nov 2008 series on the US presidential election. Potential topics include traditional and new media coverage of the election, policy positions, campaign rhetoric, polling and analysis of public opinion data, the role of race and gender in the primary and general elections, or comparisons with previous US or international elections, among others. Reflections on the upcoming transition from the Bush administration to a new administration, or on the challenges and opportunities awaiting the incoming president, are also welcome. To participate, email
a 300 word proposal and 50-100 word author bio to AN editor Dinah Winnick by July 22, 2008. Proposals for photo essays should also include five high resolution photographs, each with a photo caption and credit. We also welcome contributions in non-traditional formats and articles for other sections of AN. Early submissions are encouraged. For additional details see our website.
First Annual AAA Fieldwork Photo Contest
Anthropology News welcomes submissions for the first annual AAA Fieldwork Photo Contest. Eligible photographs include those taken August 15, 2007 through August 14, 2008 by current AAA members. We encourage the submission photos featuring a variety of subjects, from landscapes and artifacts to community gatherings and ceremonies, among others. Portraits of individuals and groups as well as photographs that convey the researcher‘s personal fieldwork experience are also welcome. Members who are not conducting fieldwork may submit photos from related research or practitioner experiences, such as those documenting archival work or public engagement. Winning photographs
will be printed in a fall 2008 issue of Anthropology News and displayed online. Additionally, AAA will invite one or more photographers to exhibit their work at the AAA office. Please see our website for guidelines.
UC Public Anthropology sponsored Book Award Competition
By Dr. Rob Borofsky. Editor, California Series in Public Anthropology
Two contracts will be awarded this fall for books that address major public problems of interest to broad audiences. Two categories may apply for the competition: (a) individuals with doctorates and (b) graduate students who have not yet received their doctorates. The mid-career category was discontinued. Deadline is October 1, 2008. Visit this website for more information. http://www.publicanthropology.org/paca-website/1e5fcf3faa5033d41199e363cecc32f3/a.php
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